Lots of celebrations happening at the Wannabe Wino house now that we’ve had a bit of time to get settled in and can actually walk through our living room again after finally unpacking all of the crystal and china that we got as wedding gifts last year and were never really able to find a place for in our apartment.

We paired this Moet & Chandon White Star Champagne with the disaster of the first meal I ever cooked in the new house. You know those pots with the locking lids that you just flip over to drain pasta? Well, I put the lid on, flipped, and drained…..and then the lid wouldn’t come off. I think perhaps the heat expanded it and it just wouldn’t budge. I ended up having to throw the pot away after leaving it in the fridge all night hoping the metal would contract. And in the meantime, cooked new pasta, but the cheesy cream sauce I made reformed into basically one big lump of cheese from cooking too long and it was just not good. So the meal was supposed to be pasta with fresh tomatoes, cheddar cheese sauce and grilled chicken.

The champagne was $41.99 on sale, had a traditional champagne closure, and weighed in at 12% alcohol by volume. At least the champagne helped salvage what otherwise would have been a disaster of an evening and I think it would have gone really well with my pasta if the sauce hadn’t been destroyed.

I would say the nose of the champagne could only be described at toasty and yeasty. It really smelled as if I were making bread from scratch. In the mouth, it was smooth, with a fine bead and certainly went down very easily, displaying mostly crisp green apple flavors. Slightly sweeter than I had expected for this bottle.

Overall, a decent bottle of champagne, though I wouldn’t pay that price point again.